
SmL^ 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



JOHN GILLEY 



Volume I. of 

«'TRUE AMERICAN TYPES ** 
SERIES 



JOHN GILLEY 

MAINE FARMER 
AND FISHERMAN 



BY 



CHARLES W. ELIOT 



BOSTON 

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 

1904 



Copyright 1899 
The Century Coaipany 



fX\.tt 



Reprinted from The Century Magazine by kind 
permission of Tat Century Company 



Published September, 1904 



LiBRSRVof oowaRess, 
TWO OoBies Bec**iv«j 

OCT 3 1904 

Oooyrfrtt Entry 

CLASS <a XXO. Na 



^^^' 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



TO THE 

BRAVE SETTLERS 

WHO LEVELLED 

FORESTS 

CLEARED FIELDS 

MADE PATHS BY 

LAND AND WATER 

AND PLANTED 

COMMONWEALTHS 



TO THE 

BRAVE WOMEN 

WHO IN 

SOLITUDES 

AMID STRANGE 

DANGERS AND 

HEAVY TOIL 

REARED FAMILIES 

AND MADE HOMES 



[from the inscriptions on the water gate at the 
world's fair, Chicago] 



JOHN GILLEY 

TO be absolutely forgotten In 
a few years is the common 
fate of mankind. Isaac Watts did 
not exaggerate when he wrote: 

Time, like an ever-rolling stream. 

Bears all its sons away : 
They fly forgotten, as a dream 

Dies at the opening day. 

With the rarest exceptions, the 
death of each human individual is 
followed in a short time by com- 
plete oblivion, so far as living human 
memories are concerned. Even fam- 
ily recollection or tradition quickly 
becomes dim, and soon fades utterly 
away. Few of us have any clear 



JOHN GILLEY 

transmitted impression of our great- 
grandparents ; some of us could not 
describe our grandparents. Even 
men accounted famous at their deaths 
slip from living memories and become 
mere shadows or word-pictures — 
shadows or pictures which too often 
distort or misrepresent the originals. 
Not one human being in ten million 
is really long remembered. For the 
mass of mankind absolute oblivion, 
like death, is sure. But what if it 
is ? Should this indubitable fact 
affect injuriously the mortal life in 
this world of the ordinary human 
being? Not at all. For most men 
and women the enjoyments, inter- 
ests, and duties of this world are just 
as real and absorbing, at the moment, 
as they would be if the enjoying. 



JOHN GILLEY 

interested, and dutiful individuals 
could imagine that they were long to 
be remembered on this earthly stage. 
A few unusually imaginative and 
ambitious persons are doubtless stim- 
ulated and supported by the hope 
of undying fame — a hope which in 
the immense majority of such cases 
proves to be a pure delusion. The 
fact is that forelooking is not a com- 
mon occupation of the human mind. 
We all live, as a rule, in the present 
and the past, and take very little 
thought for the future. Now, in 
estimating the aggregate well-being 
and happiness of a community or a 
nation, it is obviously the condition 
of the obscure millions, who are sure 
to be absolutely forgotten, that it is 
most important to see and weigh 
3 



JOHN GILLEY 

aright ; yet history and biography 
alike neglect these humble, speech- 
less multitudes, and modern fiction 
finds it profitable to portray the 
most squalid and vicious sides of 
the life of these millions rather 
than the best and the commonest. 
Thus the facts about the life of the 
common multitude go unobserved, 
or at least unrecorded, while fiction 
paints that life in false colors. 

This little book describes with 
accuracy the actual life of one of the 
to-be-forgotten millions. Is this life 
a true American type ? If it is, 
there is good hope for our country. 

John Gilley was born February 

22, 1822, at the Fish Point on Great 

Cranberry Island, Maine, whither 

his mother, who lived on Baker's 

4 



JOHN GILLEY 

Island, had gone to be confined at 
the house of Mrs. Stanley, a 
midwife. Baker*s Island lies nearly 
four miles from the island of Mount 
Desert. It is a roundish island, a 
little more than half a mile long 
from north to south, and a little 
less than half a mile wide from east 
to west. At low tide it is connected 
with another much larger island, 
called Little Cranberry, by a reef and 
bar about a mile long; but by half- 
tide this bar is entirely covered. 
Almost all the coasting vessels 
which come from the westward, 
bound to the Bay of Fundy or to 
the coast of Maine east of French- 
man's Bay, pass just outside of Bak- 
er's Island; and, as this island has 
some dangerous ledges near it, the 
5 



JOHN GILLEY 

United States built a lighthouse on 
its highest part in the year 1828. 
The island has no good harbor ; but 
in the summer small vessels find a 
safe anchorage on the north side of 
it, except in easterly storms. The 
whole shore of the island is bare 
rock, and the vegetation does not 
approach the ordinary level of high 
water, the storm-waves keeping the 
rocks bare far above and behind the 
smooth-water level of high tide. 
There are many days in every year 
when it is impossible to land on the 
island or to launch a boat from it. 
In the milder half of the year the 
island is of course a convenient stop- 
ping-place for offshore fishermen, for 
it is several miles nearer the fishing- 
grounds than the harbors of Mount 
6 



JOHN GILLEY 

Desert proper. In the first years of 
this century the island was uninhab- 
ited, and was covered by a growth of 
good-sized trees, both evergreen and 
deciduous. 

About the year 1812, William 
Gilley of Norwood's Cove, at the 
foot of Somes Sound on its west 
side, and Hannah Lurvey, his wife, 
decided to move on to Baker's Island 
with their three little children and all 
their goods. Up to that time he 
had got his living chiefly on fishing 
or coasting vessels ; but, like most 
young men of the region, he was 
also something of a wood-cutter and 
farmer. He and his wife had already 
accumulated a little store of house- 
hold goods and implements, and 
tools for fishing and farming. They 
7 



JOHN GILLEY 

needed no money wherewith to buy 
Baker's Island. There it lay in the 
sea, unoccupied and unclaimed ; and 
they simply took possession of it. 

William Gilley was a large, strong 
man, six feet tall, and weighing over 
two hundred pounds. His father 
is said to have come from Great 
Britain at fourteen years of age. 
Hannah Gilley was a robust woman, 
who had lived in Newburyport and 
Byfield, Massachusetts, until she was 
thirteen years old, and had there had 
much better schooling than was to 
be had on the island of Mount 
Desert, She was able to teach all 
her children to read, write, and 
cipher ; and all her life she valued 
good reading, and encouraged it 
in her family. Her father, Jacob 
8 



JOHN GILLEY 

Lurvey, was born in Gloucester, 
Massachusetts, and married Hannah 
Boynton of Byfield. The name 
Lurvey is a good transliteration of 
the German Loewe, which is a 
common name among German Jews ; 
and there is a tradition in the Lurvey 
family that the first Lurvey, who 
emigrated to Massachusetts in the 
seventeenth century, was of Jewish 
descent and came from Archangel 
in Russia. It is noticeable that 
many of the Lurveys have Old 
Testament names, such as Reuben, 
Levi, Samuel, Isaac, and Jacob, and 
that their noses tend to be aquiline. 
This was the case with most of the 
children of William and Hannah 
Gilley. The father of Hannah served 
in the Revolutionary army as a boy, 
9 



JOHN GILLEY 

He lived to the age of ninety-two, 
and had ten children and seventy- 
seven grandchildren. The Lurveys 
are therefore still numerous at South- 
West Harbor and the vicinity. 

For William Gilley the enterprise 
of taking possession of Baker*s Island 
involved much heavy labor, but few 
unaccustomed risks. For Hannah, 
his wife, it was different. She al- 
ready had three little children, and 
she was going to face for herself 
and her family a formidable isolation 
which was absolute for considerable 
periods in the year. Moreover, she 
was going to take her share in the 
severe labors of a pioneering family. 
Even to get a footing on this wooded 
island — to land lumber, live stock, 
provisions, and the implements of 

10 



JOHN GILLEY 

labor, and to build the first shelter 
— was no easy task. A small, rough 
beach of large stones was the only 
landing-place, and just above the 
bare rocks of the shore was the 
forest. However, health, strength, 
and fortitude were theirs ; and in a 
few years they had established them- 
selves on the island in considerable 
comfort. Nine more children were 
born to them there ; so that they 
ultimately had a family of twelve 
children, of whom six were sons and 
six daughters. All these children 
grew to maturity. Fortunately, the 
eldest child was a girl, for it was the 
mother that most needed help. Three 
of the children are still (1899) living, 
two of them over eighty years of age 
and one over ninety. Nine of the 
II 



JOHN GILLEY 

twelve children married, and to them 
were born fifty-eight children, of 
whom forty-five are still living. 

John Gilley was the tenth child 
and also the youngest son, and when 
he was born the family had already 
been ten years on the island, and had 
transformed it into a tolerable farm. 
When he began to look about him, 
his father was keeping about six cows, 
a yoke of oxen, two or three young 
cattle, about fifty sheep, and three 
or four hogs. Several of the chil- 
dren were already contributing by 
their labor to the support of the 
family. The girls, by the time they 
were twelve years old, were real 
helpers for the mother. They tended 
the poultry, made butter, and spun 
wool. The boys naturally helped in 

12 



JOHN GILLEY 

the work of the father. He, unaided 
except by his boys, had cleared a 
considerable portion of the island, 
burning up in so doing a fine growth 
of trees — spruce, fir, birch, and beech. 
With his oxen he had broken up the 
cleared land, hauled oflF part of the 
stones and piled them on the pro- 
truding ledges, and gradually made 
fields for grass and other crops. In 
the earlier years, before flour began 
to be cheap at the Mount Desert 
" stores," he had even raised a little 
wheat on the island; but the main 
crops besides hay were potatoes and 
other vegetables for the use of the 
family and cattle. The son is still 
living who carried a boat-load of 
wheat to Somesville, had it ground 
and sifted into three grades, and car- 
13 



JOHN GILLEY 

ried all three back to the island for 
winter use. The potato-bug and 
potato-rot were then unknown, and 
the island yielded any wished-for 
amount of potatoes. The family 
often dug from two to three hundred 
bushels of potatoes in a season, and 
fed what they did not want to their 
cattle and hogs. 

Food at the island was habitually 
abundant. It was no trouble to get 
lobsters. No traps were needed; 
they could be picked up in the shal- 
low water along the rocky shore. 
Fresh fish were always to be easily 
procured, except in stormy weather 
and in cold and windy February and 
March. A lamb could be killed at 
any time in the summer. In the 
fall, in sorting the flock of sheep, 
14 



JOHN GILLEY 

the family killed from ten to fifteen 
sheep ; and what they could not use 
as fresh mutton they salted. Later 
in the season, when the weather 
turned cold, they killed a " beef- 
critter," and sometimes two when the 
family grew large. Part of this beef 
was salted, but part was kept frozen 
throughout the winter to be used 
fresh. Sea-birds added to their store 
of food. Shooting them made sport 
for the boys. Ducks and other sea- 
fowl were so abundant in the fall 
that the gunners had to throw away 
the bodies of the birds, after picking 
off all the feathers. The family 
never bought any salt pork, but 
every winter made a year's supply. 
Although codfish were easily acces- 
sible, the family made no use of salt 
IS 



JOHN GILLEY 

cod. They preferred mackerel, which 
were to be taken in the near waters 
in some month of every year. They 
had a few nets, but they also caught 
mackerel on the hook. During the 
summer and early autumn the family 
had plenty of fresh vegetables. 

For clothing the family depended 
mostly on wool from their own sheep. 
They used very little cotton. There 
were spinning-wheels and looms in 
the house, and the mother both spun 
and wove. Flax they raised on the 
island, and from it made a coarse 
kind of linen, chiefly for towels. 
They did, however, buy a cotton 
warp, and filled it with wool, thus 
making a comfortable sort of sheet 
for winter use or light blanket for 
summer. The wool of at least fifty 
i6 



JOHN GILLEY 

sheep was used every year in the 
household, when the family had 
grown large. The children all went 
barefoot the greater part of the year ; 
but in the winter they wore shoes or 
boots, the eldest brother having 
learned enough of the shoemaker's 
art to keep the family supplied with 
footwear in winter. At that time 
there were no such things as rubber 
boots, and the family did not expect 
to have dry feet. 

Their uses for money were few ; 
but some essentials to comfort they 
must procure at the store, seven miles 
away, at South-West Harbor, in 
return for money or its equivalent. 
Their available resources for procur- 
ing money were very much like those 
of similar families to-day in the same 
2 17 



JOHN GILLEY 

neighborhood. They could sell or 
exchange butter and eggs at the store, 
and they could sell in Boston dried 
fish and feathers. One of John's 
elder brothers shot birds enough 
in a single year to yield over a hun- 
dredweight of feathers, worth fifty 
cents a pound in Boston. The 
family shipped their feathers to 
Boston every year by a coasting 
vessel ; and this product represented 
men's labor, whereas the butter and 
eggs represented chiefly the women's 
labor. The butter was far the best 
of the cash resources ; and so it re- 
mains to this day in these islands. 
It sold in the vicinity at twelve and 
a half cents a pound. There was 
one other source of money, namely, 
smoked herring. The herring which 
i8 



JOHN GILLEY 

abound in these waters had at that 
time no value for bait; but smoked 
herring could be sold in New York, 
which was the best market for them, 
at from seventy-five cents to one 
dollar and ten cents a box, each box 
holding half a bushel. The herring 
were caught, for the most part, in 
gill-nets ; for there were then no weirs 
and no seines. The family had their 
own smoke-house, and made the 
boxes themselves from lumber which 
was sawed for them at the Somesville 
or the Duck Brook saw-mill. Each 
of these saw-mills was at least nine 
miles distant from Baker's Island ; 
so that it was a serious undertaking, 
requiring favorable weather, to boat 
the lumber from the mill and land it 
safely at the rough home beach. 
19 



JOHN GILLEY 

The family nailed the boxes together, 
out of the sawed lumber in the early 
fall, and packed them with the fra- 
grant fish ; and then some coasting 
vessel, usually a schooner owned in 
a neighboring island, carried the fin- 
ished product to distant New York, 
and brought back, after a month or 
two, clear cash to pay for the winter's 
stores. 

In this large and united family the 
boys stayed at home and worked for 
their parents until they were twenty- 
one years of age, and the girls stayed 
at home until they were married and 
had homes of their own or had come 
of age. All the boys and three of 
the girls were ultimately married. 
The three girls who did not marry 
went away from home to earn money 
20 



JOHN GILLEY 

by household labor, factory work, 
nursing, or sewing. It was not all 
work for the children on the island, 
or, indeed, for the father and mother. 
In the long winter evenings they 
played checkers and fox and geese; 
and the mother read to the family 
until the children grew old enough 
to take their share in reading aloud. 
Out of doors they played ball, and 
in winter coasted on the snow. The 
boys, as soon as they were ten or 
twelve years of age, were in and out 
of boats much of the time, and so 
attained that quick, instinctive use 
of oar, sail, and tiller in which lies 
safety. When they grew older they 
had the sport of gunning, with the 
added interest of profit from the 
feathers. Their domestic animals 

21 



JOHN GILLEY 

were a great interest as well as a 
great care. Then, they always had 
before them some of the most splen- 
did aspects of nature. From their 
sea-girt dwelling they could see the 
entire hemisphere of the sky ; and 
to the north lay the grand hills of 
Mount Desert, with outline clear 
and sharp when the northwest wind 
blew, but dim and soft when south- 
erly winds prevailed. In every 
storm a magnificent surf dashed up 
on the rockbound isle. In winter 
the low sun made the sea toward the 
south a sheet of shimmering silver ; 
and all the year an endless variety 
of colors, shades, and textures played 
over the surfaces of hills and sea. 
The delight in such visions is often 
but half conscious in persons who 

22 



JOHN GILLEY 

have not the habit of reflection ; 
but it is nevertheless a real source 
of happiness, which is soon missed 
when one brought up amid such 
pure and noble scenes is set down 
among the straitened, squalid, ugly 
sights of a city. On the whole, the 
survivors of that isolated family look 
back on their childhood as a happy 
one ; and they feel a strong sense of 
obligation to the father and mother 
— particularly to the mother, because 
she was a person of excellent fac- 
ulties and an intellectual outlook. 
Like most of her people for two 
generations, she was a member of 
the Congregational Church ; and in 
the summer-time she took the eldest 
children nearly every Sunday in mild 
weather to the church at South-West 
23 



JOHN GILLEY 

Harbor, going seven miles each way 
in an open boat. To be sure, the 
minister taught that hell was paved 
with infants* skulls, and descriptions 
of hell-fire and the undying worm 
formed an important part of every 
discourse. Some of the children sup- 
posed themselves to accept what they 
heard at church ; but the mother did 
not. She bought books and read for 
herself; and by the time she had 
borne half a dozen children she could 
no longer accept the old beliefs, and 
became a Universalist, to which more 
cheerful faith she adhered till her 
death. 

It is obvious that this family on 

its island domain was much more 

self-contained and independent than 

any ordinary family is to-day, even 

24 



JOHN GILLEY 

under similar circumstances. They 
got their fuel, food, and clothing as 
products of their own skill and labor, 
their supplies and resources being 
almost all derived from the sea and 
from their own fields and woods. 
In these days of one crop on a farm, 
one trade for a man, and factory 
labor for whole families, it is not 
probable that there exists a single 
American family which is so little 
dependent on exchange of products, 
or on supplies resulting from the 
labor of others, as was the family of 
William and Hannah Gilley from 
1 8 12 to 1842. It should also be 
observed that sea-shore people have 
a considerable advantage in bringing 
up boys, because boys who become 
good boatmen must have had an ad- 
25 



JOHN GILLEY 

mirable training in alertness, prompt 
decision, resource in emergencies, 
and courageous steadiness in diffi- 
culties and dangers. The shore 
fisherman or lobsterman on the 
coast of Maine, often going miles 
to sea alone in a half-decked boat, is 
liable to all sorts of vexatious or for- 
midable weather changes — in sum- 
mer to fog, calms, and squalls, in 
winter to low-lying icy vapor, blind- 
ing snow, and the sudden north- 
wester at zero, against which he must 
beat homeward with the flying spray 
freezing fast to hull, sails, and rig- 
ging. The youth who learns to 
wring safety and success out of such 
adverse conditions has been taught 
by these struggles with nature to 
be vigilant, patient, self-reliant, and 
26 



JOHN GILLEY 

brave. In these temperate regions 
the adverse forces of nature are not, 
as they sometimes are in the tropics, 
irresistible and overwhelming. They 
can be resisted and overcome by 
man; and so they develop in suc- 
cessive generations some of the best 
human qualities. 

It resulted from the principles in 
which the children had been brought 
up that no one of the boys began to 
save much of anything for himself 
until he was twenty-one years of age. 
It was therefore 1843 before John 
Gilley began to earn money on 
his own account. Good health, a 
strong body, skill as a sailor, and 
some knowledge of farming, stock- 
raising, and fishing, he had acquired. 
In what way should he now begin to 
27 



JOHN GILLEY 

use these acquisitions for his own 
advantage ? A fortunate change in 
his father's occupation fifteen years 
before probably facilitated John's 
entrance on a career of his own. Wil- 
liam Gilley had been appointed light- 
keeper in 1828, with a compensation 
of three hundred and fifty dollars a 
year in money, the free occupation 
of a house, and all the sperm-oil he 
could use in his household. He 
held this place until the year 1849, 
when, on the coming into power of 
the Whig party, he was turned out 
and a Whig was appointed in his 
place. Perhaps in recognition of his 
long service, it was considerately sug- 
gested to him that he might retain 
his position if he should see fit to 
join the dominant party ; but to this 
28 



JOHN GILLEY 

overture he replied, with some ex- 
pletives, that he would not change 
his political connection for all the 
lighthouses in the United States. 
Now, three hundred and fifty dollars 
a year in cash, besides house and 
light, was a fortune to any coast-of- 
Maine family seventy years ago, — 
indeed, it still is, — and William 
Gilley undoubtedly was able to lay 
up some portion of it, besides im- 
proving his buildings, live stock, 
boats, tools, and household furniture. 
From these savings the father was 
able to furnish a little money to start 
his sons each in his own career. This 
father was himself an irrepressible 
pioneer, always ready for a new en- 
terprise. In 1837, ^^"g before he 
was turned out of the lighthouse, he 
29 



JOHN GILLEY 

bought for three hundred dollars 
Great Duck Island, an uninhabited 
Island about five miles southwest of 
Baker's Island, and even more diffi- 
cult of access, his project being to 
raise live stock there. Shortly after 
he ceased to be light-keeper, when 
he was about sixty- three years old, 
and his youngest children were grown 
up, he went to live on Great Duck, 
and there remained almost alone 
until he was nearly eighty years of 
age. His wife Hannah had become 
somewhat infirm, and was unable to 
do more than make him occasional 
visits on Duck Island. She died at 
sixty-nine, but he lived to be ninety- 
two. Each lived in their declining 
years with one of their married sons, 
Hannah on Little Cranberry and 
30 



JOHN GILLEY 

William on Baker's. Such is the 
natural mode of taking care of 
old parents in a community where 
savings are necessarily small and only 
the able-bodied can really earn their 
livelihood. 

John Gilley's first venture was the 
purchase of a part of a small coast- 
ing schooner called the Preference^ 
which could carry about one hun- 
dred tons, and cost between eight 
and nine hundred dollars. He be- 
came responsible for one-third of 
her value, paying down one or two 
hundred dollars, which his father 
probably lent him. For the rest of 
the third he obtained credit for a 
short time from the seller of the 
vessel. The other two owners were 
men who belonged on Great Cran- 
31 



JOHN GILLEY 

berry Island. The owners pro- 
ceeded to use their purchase during 
all the mild weather — perhaps six 
months of each year — in carrying 
paving-stones to Boston. These 
stones, unlike the present rectangular 
granite blocks, were smooth cobble- 
stones picked up on the outside 
beaches of the neighboring islands. 
They of course were not found on 
any inland or smooth-water beaches, 
but only where heavy waves rolled 
the beach-stones up and down. The 
crew of the Preference must therefore 
anchor her off an exposed beach, and 
then, with a large dory, boat off to 
her the stones which they picked up 
by hand. This work was possible 
only during moderate weather. The 
stones must be of tolerably uniform 
32 



JOHN GILLEY 

size, neither too large nor too small ; 
and each one had to be selected by 
the eye and picked up by the hand. 
When the dory was loaded, it had 
to be lifted off the beach by the men 
standing in the water, and rowed out 
to the vessel ; and there every single 
stone had to be picked up by hand 
and thrown on to the vessel. A 
hundred tons having been thus got 
aboard by sheer hard work of human 
muscle, the old craft, which was not 
too seaworthy, was sailed to Boston, to 
be discharged at what was then called 
the " Stone Wharf*' in Charlestown. 
There the crew threw the stones out 
of her hold on to the wharf by hand. 
They therefore lifted and threw these 
hundred tons of stone three times at 
least before they were deposited on 
3 3S 



JOHN GILLEY 

the city's wharf. The cobblestones 
were the main freight of the vessel ; 
but she also carried dried fish to 
Boston, and fetched back goods to 
the island stores of the vicinity. 
Some of the island people bought 
their flour, sugar, dry-goods, and 
other family stores in Boston through 
the captain of the schooner. John 
Gilley soon began to go as captain, 
being sometimes accompanied by the 
other owners and sometimes by men 
on wages. He was noted among his 
neighbors for the care and good 
judgment with which he executed 
their various commissions, and he 
knew himself to be trusted by them. 
This business he followed for several 
years, paid off his debt to the seller 
of the schooner, and began to lay up 
34 



JOHN GILLEY 

money. It was an immense satis- 
faction to him to feel himself thus 
established in an honest business 
which he understood, and in which 
he was making his way. There are 
few solider satisfactions to be won in 
this world by anybody, in any con- 
dition of life. The scale of the busi- 
ness — large or small — makes little 
difference in the measure of content. 
At that time — about 1 843 to 
1850 — there were very few guides 
to navigation between Mount Des- 
ert and Boston compared with the 
numerous marks that the govern- 
ment now maintains. Charts were 
lacking, and the government had 
issued no coast-pilot. Blount's 
" Coast-Pilot " was the only book in 
use among the coastwise navigators, 
35 



JOHN GILLEY 

and its description of the coast of 
Maine, New Hampshire, and Mas- 
sachusetts was very incomplete, 
though tolerably accurate in the few 
most important regions. It was 
often anxious business for the young 
owners of an old, uninsured vessel to 
encounter the various weather of the 
New England coast between the first 
of April and the first of December. 
Their all and sometimes their lives 
were at stake on their own prudence, 
knowledge, and skill. None of 
them had knowledge of navigation 
in the technical sense ; they were 
coasting sailors only, who found 
their way from point to point along 
the shore by practice, keen observa- 
tion, and good memory for objects 
once seen and courses once safely 
36 



JOHN GILLEY 

steered. The young man who can 
do this work successfully has some 
good grounds for self-respect. At 
this business John Gilley laid up 
several hundred dollars. In a few 
years he was able to sell the Pref- 
erence and buy half of a much better 
vessel called the Express, She was 
larger, younger, and a better sailer, 
and cost her purchasers between fif- 
teen and sixteen hundred dollars. 
He followed the same business in 
the Express for several years more, 
laying her up in the late autumn and 
fitting her out again every spring. 
The winters he generally spent with 
his father and mother, or with one 
of his married brothers ; but even in 
such periods of comparative repose 
he kept busy, and was always trying 
37 



JOHN GILLEY 

to make a little money. He was 
fond of gunning, and liked it all the 
better because it yielded feathers for 
sale. In December, 1853, he was 
staying with his brother Samuel Gil- 
ley on Little Cranberry Island, and 
gunning as usual ; but his brother 
observed that he did not sell the 
feathers which he assiduously collec- 
ted. That winter there was a school- 
teacher from Sullivan on Little 
Cranberry, who seemed to be an 
intelligent and pleasing girl. He 
made no remarks on the subject to his 
brother ; but that brother decided 
that John was looking for a wife 
— or, as this brother expressed it at 
the age of eighty-two, "John was 
thinking of looking out for the 
woman; he saved his feathers — and 
38 



JOHN GILLEY 

actions speak louder than words." 
Moreover, he sold his vessel at 
Rockland, and found himself in pos- 
session of nine or ten hundred dollars 
in money, the product of patient 
industry, and not the result of draw- 
ing a prize or two in the fishing lot- 
tery. In the following spring he 
went with six or seven other men, in 
a low priced fishing-vessel of about 
thirty-five tons which his brother 
Samuel and he had bought, up the 
Bay of Fundy and to the banks be- 
tween Mount Desert and Cape Sable, 
fishing for cod and haddock. Every 
fortnight or three weeks the brothers 
came home to land their fish and 
get supplies ; but the schoolmistress 
had gone home to Sullivan. Dur- 
ing that spring John Gilley crossed 
39 



JOHN GILLEY 

more than once to Sutton' s Island, 
an island about a mile long, which 
lies between the Cranberry Islands 
and the island of Mount Desert, 
with its long axis lying nearly east 
and west. On this island he bought, 
that season, a rough, neglected farm 
of about fifty acres, on which stood 
a house and barn. It was a great 
undertaking to put the buildings 
into habitable condition and clear up 
and improve the few arable fields. 
But John Gilley looked forward to 
the task with keen interest and a 
good hope, and he had the definite 
purpose of providing here a perma- 
nent home for himself and a wife. 

When cold weather put an end to 
the fishing season, John Gilley, hav- 
ing provided all necessary articles for 
40 



JOHN GILLEY 

his house, sailed over to Sullivan, 
distant about eighteen miles, in his 
fishing-vessel and brought back to 
the home on Sutton's Island Harriet 
Bickford Wilkinson, the schoolmis- 
tress from Sullivan. The grandfather 
of Harriet Wilkinson came to Sulli- 
van from Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire, in 1769, and her mother's 
family came from York, Maine. 
The marriage took place on Decem- 
ber 25, 1854, when John was thirty- 
two and Harriet was twenty-five; 
and both entered with joy upon mar- 
ried life at their own island farm. 
She was a pretty woman, but delicate, 
belonging to a family which was 
thought to have a tendency to con- 
sumption. In the summer of 1855 
he spent about half his time on 
41 



JOHN GILLKY 

this same vessel which had brought 
home his wife, and made a fair profit 
on the fishing ; and the next year 
he sometimes went on short trips of 
shore fishing, but that was the last of 
his going away from the farm. 
Whatever fishing he did afterward he 
did in an open boat not far from 
home, and he went coasting no more. 
A son was born to them, but lived 
only seven months ; and soon the 
wife's health began to fail. A wife's 
sickness, in the vast majority of fam- 
ilies, means first, the loss of her 
labor in the care and support of the 
household, and secondly, the neces- 
sity of hiring some woman to do the 
work which the wife cannot do. 
This necessity of hiring is a heavy 
burden in a family where little money 
42 



JOHN GILLEY 

is earned, although there may be 
great comfort so far as food, fire, and 
clothing are concerned. His young 
wife continuing to grow worse, John 
Gilley tried all means that were pos- 
sible to him to restore her health. 
He consulted the neighboring physi- 
cians, bought quantities of medicine 
in great variety, and tried in every 
way that love or duty could suggest 
to avert the threatening blow. It 
was all in vain. Harriet Gilley 
lived only two years and a half after 
her marriage, dying in June, 1857. 
At this period, his expenses being 
large, and his earning power re- 
duced, John Gilley was forced to 
borrow a little money. The farm 
and the household equipment had 
absorbed his whole capital. 
43 



JOHN GILLEY 

On April 27, 1857, there came 
from Sullivan, to take care of Har- 
riet, Mary Jane Wilkinson, her 
cousin. This cousin was only twenty- 
one years of age ; but her father 
was dead, and her mother had mar- 
ried again. She had helped her 
mother till she was almost twenty-one 
years of age, but now felt free. 
Until this cousin came, nieces and a 
sister of John Gilley had helped him 
to take care of his dying wife. The 
women relatives must always come to 
the aid of a family thus distressed. 
To help in taking care of the farm 
and in fishing, John Gilley habitu- 
ally hired a man all through the sea- 
son, and this season of 1857 the 
hired man was his wife's brother. 
When Harriet Gilley died, there 
44 



JOHN GILLEY 

was still the utmost need of a woman 
on the farm ; so Mary Jane Wil- 
kinson stayed during the summer 
and through the next winter, and 
before the end of that winter she had 
promised to marry John Gilley. 
There were at that time eight houses 
on Sutton's Island, and more perma- 
nent residents than there are now. 
Mary Jane Wilkinson was fond of 
the care of animals and of farm 
duties in general. She found at the 
farm only twelve hens, a cow, and a 
calf, and she set to work at once to 
increase the quantity of live stock ; 
but in April, 1858, she returned to 
her mother's house at West Goulds- 
boro*, that she might prepare her 
wardrobe and some articles of house- 
hold linen. When, later in the sea- 
45 



JOHN GILLEY 

son, John Gilley came after Mary 
Jane Wilkinson at Jones's Cove, he 
had to transport to Sutton's Island, 
besides Mary Jane's personal posses- 
sions, a pair of young steers, a pig, 
and a cat. They were married at 
North-East Harbor by Squire Kim- 
ball, in the old tavern on the west 
side of the harbor, in July, 1858 ; 
and then these two set about improv- 
ing their condition by unremitting 
industry and frugality, and an intelli- 
gent use of every resource the place 
afforded. The new wife gave her 
attention to the poultry and made 
butter whenever the milk could not 
be sold as such. The price of but- 
ter had greatly improved since John 
Gilley was a boy on Baker's Island. 
It could now be sold at from twenty 
46 



JOHN GILLEY 

to twenty-five cents a pound. In 
summer Squire Kimball, at the tav- 
ern, bought their milk. All sum- 
mer eggs could be sold at the stores 
on the neighboring islands ; but in 
the fall it was necessary to send 
them to Boston. During the fish- 
ing season the husband frequently 
went for fish in an open boat with 
one sail ; but he no longer absented 
himself from home for weeks at a 
time. His labor on the farm was 
incessant. On the crest of the 
island a small field had been cleared 
by the former occupant of the house. 
With the help of a yoke of oxen 
John Gilley proceeded to add to 
this field on the east and on the 
west. The piles of stones which he 
heaped up on the bare ledges remain 
47 



JOHN GILLEY 

to this day to testify to his industry. 
One of them is twenty-four feet long, 
fifteen feet wide, and five feet high. 
In after years he was proud of these 
piles, regarding them as monuments 
to his patient industry and persever- 
ance in the redemption, or rather 
creation, of this precious mowing- 
field. 

In these labors three or four years 
passed away, when the Civil War 
broke out, and soon, linseed-oil 
becoming scarce, porgy-oil attained an 
unheard of value. Fortunately for 
the New England shore people, the 
porgies arrived in shoals on the coast 
in every season for rather more than 
ten years. At various places along 
the shore from Long Island Sound 
to the Bay of Fundy, large factories 
48 



JOHN GILLEY 

were built for expressing the oil from 
these fish ; but this was an industry 
which could also be well conducted 
on a small scale with a few nets, a 
big kettle, and a screw-press worked 
by hand. For an enterprising and 
energetic man here was a new chance 
of getting profit from the sea. 
Accordingly, John Gilley, like 
thousands of other fishermen along 
the New England coast, set up a 
small porgy-oil factory, and during 
the porgy season this was his most 
profitable form of industry. During 
the last part of the war porgy-oil 
sold at a dollar or even a dollar and 
ten cents a gallon. The chum, or 
refuse from the press, was a valuable 
element in manure. All of John 
Gilley's porgy-chum went to enrich 
4 49 



JOHN GILLEY 

his precious fields. We may be 
sure that this well-used opportunity- 
gave him great satisfaction. 

The farm, like most farms on the 
Maine shore, not sufficing for the 
comfortable support of his family, 
John Gilley was always looking for 
another industry by which he could 
add to his annual income. He 
found such an industry in the manu- 
facture of smoked herring. This 
was at that time practised in two ways 
among the island people. Fresh 
herring were caught near home, and 
were immediately corned and smoked; 
and salted herring brought from the 
Magdalen Islands were bought by 
the vessel-load, soaked in fresh water 
to remove a part of the salt, and then 
smoked. John Gilley built a large 
so 



JOHN GILLEY 

smoke-house on his shore close to 
a safe and convenient anchorage, and 
there pursued the herring business 
in both forms, whenever supplies of 
herring could be obtained. This is 
an industry in which women can bear 
a part. They can pull out the gills 
and string the wet fish on the sticks 
by which they are hung up in the 
smoke-house ; and they can pack the 
dried fish into the boxes in which 
they are marketed. So the wife and 
the eldest daughter, as time went on, 
took a hand in this herring work. 
The sawed lumber for the boxes was 
all brought from the saw-mill at the 
head of Somes Sound, eight miles 
away. The men did that transpor- 
tation, and nailed the boxes together. 
It was characteristic of John Gilley 
51 



JOHN GILLEY 

that he always took pains to have 
his things better than anybody else's. 
He was careful and particular about 
all his work, and thoroughly believed 
in the good results of this painstak- 
ing care. He was always confident 
that his milk, butter, eggs, fowls, 
porgy-oil, and herring were better 
than the common, and were worth 
a higher price ; and he could often 
induce purchasers to think so, too. 

Of the second marriage there came 
three girls, who all grew to maturity, 
and two of whom were married in 
due season ; but when John Gilley 
was seventy-four years old he had 
but two grandchildren, of whom the 
elder was only eight years old, his 
fate in this respect being far less for- 
tunate than that of his father. Late 
52 



JOHN GILLEY 

marriage caused him to miss some 
of the most exquisite of natural 
human delights. He could not wit- 
ness the coming of grandchildren to 
maturity. He had the natural, animal 
fondness — so to speak — for chil- 
dren, the economic liking for them 
as helpers, and the real love for them 
as affectionate comrades and friends. 
The daughters were disposed to 
help in the support of the family 
and the care of the farm. The eldest 
went through the whole course of the 
Normal School at Castine, and be- 
came a teacher. The youngest was 
best at household and farm work, 
having her father's head for business. 
The other daughter was married 
early, but had already gone from her 
father's house to Little Cranberry 
53 



JOHN GILLEY 

Island as a helper in the family of 
the principal storekeeper on that 
island. Since the household needed 
the assistance of another male, it was 
their custom to hire a well-grown boy 
or a man during the better part of 
the year, the wages for such services 
being not more than from fifteen to 
twenty dollars a month in addition 
to board and lodging. 

Although the island lay much 
nearer to the shores of Mount Desert 
than Baker's Island did, the family 
had hardly more intercourse with the 
main island than William Gilley's 
family on Baker's Island had had 
a generation before. They found 
their pleasures chiefly at home. In 
the winter evenings they read aloud 
to one another, thus carrying down 
54 



JOHN GILLEY 

to another generation the habit which 
Hannah Lurvey Gilley had estab- 
lished in her family. The same 
good habit has been transmitted to 
the family of one of John Gilley's 
married daughters, where it is now in 
force. 

In the early autumn of 1874 a 
serious disaster befell this industrious 
and thriving family. One evening 
Mr. and Mrs. Gilley were walking 
along the southern shore of the island 
toward a neighbor*s house, when 
John suggested that it was time for 
Mary Jane to get the supper, and 
for him to attend to the lire in the 
smoke-house, which was full of her- 
ring hung up to smoke, and also con- 
tained on the floor a large quantity 
of packed herring, the fruit of the 
55 



JOHN GILLEY 

entire summer's work on herring. 
The smoke-house was large, and at 
one end there stood a carpenter's 
bench with a good many tools. It 
was also used as a place of storage 
for rigging, anchors, blocks, and 
other seamen's gear. Mrs. Gilley 
went home and made ready the sup- 
per. John Gilley arranged the fire 
as usual in the smoke-house, and 
went up to the house from the 
shore. As the family were sitting 
at supper, a neighbor, who had been 
calling there and had gone out, rushed 
back, exclaiming, " Your smoke- 
house is all afire ! " So indeed it was; 
and in a few minutes John Gilley's 
chief investment and all his summer's 
work went up in flames. The whole 
family ran to the scene, but it was 
56 



JOHN GILLEY 

too late to do more than save the 
fish-house which stood near. John 
opened the door of the smoke-house 
and succeeded in rescuing a pair of 
oiled trousers and his precious com- 
pass, which stood on a shelf by the 
door. Everything else was burned 
up clean. John said but little at the 
moment, and looked calmly on at 
the quick destruction ; but when he 
went to bed that night, he broke 
down and bewailed his loss with tears 
and sobs. He had lost not only a 
sum of money which was large for 
him, — perhaps five hundred dollars, 
— but, what was more, he had lost 
an object of interest and affection, 
and a means of livelihood which 
represented years of patient labor. 
It was as if a mill-owner had lost his 
57 



JOHN GILLEY 

mill without insurance, or the owner 
of a noble vessel had seen her go 
down within sight of home. This 
was the only time in all their married 
life that his wife ever saw him over- 
come by such emotion. In conse- 
quence of this disaster, it was necessary 
for John Gilley, in order to buy 
stores enough for the ensuing winter, 
to sell part of the live stock off his 
farm. This fact shows how close 
may be the margin of livelihood for 
a family on the New England coast 
which really owns a good deal of 
property and is justly held by its 
neighbors to be well off. If the 
cash proceeds of a season's work 
are lost or destroyed, extraordinary 
and undesirable means have to be 
taken to carry over the family to 
58 



JOHN GILLEY 

another season. This may happen 
to a healthy, industrious, frugal house- 
hold. Much worse, of course, may 
happen in consequence of sudden 
disaster in an unthrifty or sickly 
family. The investments of poor 
men are apt to be very hazardous. 
They put their all into farming-tools 
or live stock ; they risk everything 
they have on an old vessel or on a 
single crop, and therefore on the 
weather of a single season ; with 
their small savings they build a barn 
or a smoke-house, which may be re- 
duced to ashes with all its contents in 
fifteen minutes. Insurance they can 
seldom afford. If the investments 
of the rich were as hazardous as are 
those of the poor, theirs would be a lot 
even more worrisome than it is now. 
59 



JOHN GILLEY 

The smoke-house was never re- 
built. At first the money to rebuild 
was lacking, and later a new prospect 
opened before the family. After the 
fire John Gilley went more into cows 
and less into fat oxen. Hitherto he 
had always kept a good yoke of 
oxen and some steers, and he had 
been accustomed to do their hauling 
and plowing for all the families on 
the island. Thereafter he generally 
had as many as five cows, but often 
only a single young ox to do the 
hauling for the island. He always 
trained his oxen himself, and had 
pleasure in the company of these 
patient and serviceable creatures. 

In 1880 the Gilleys on Sutton's 
Island heard that three "Westerners," 
or " rusticators,** had bought land at 
60 



JOHN GILLEY 

North-East Harbor. One was said 
to be a bishop, another the president 
of a college, and the third and earliest 
buyer a landscape-gardener — what- 
ever that might be. It was even 
reported that one of these pioneers 
had landed on the western end of 
Sutton*s Island and walked the length 
of the island. The news was in- 
tensely interesting to all the inhabi- 
tants. They had heard of the 
fabulous prices of land at Bar Har- 
bor, and their imaginations began to 
play over their own pastures and 
wood-lots. John Gilley went steadily 
on his laborious and thrifty way. He 
served the town in various capacities, 
such as selectman and collector of 
taxes. He was one of the school 
committee for several years, and later 
6i 



JOHN GILLEY 

one of the board of health. He was 
also road surveyor on the island — 
there being but one road, and that 
grass-grown. As a town officer John 
Gilley exhibited the same uprightness 
and frugality which he showed in all 
his private dealings. To be chosen 
to responsible office by his fellow- 
townsmen, every one of whom knew 
him personally, was to him a source 
of rational gratification ; and in each 
of his offices he had occasion to en- 
large his knowledge and to undertake 
new responsibilities. 

In 1884 the extreme western point 
of Sutton's Island was sold to a 
" Westerner," a professor in Har- 
vard College, and shortly after a 
second sale in the same neighbor- 
hood was effected ; but it was not 
62 



JOHN GILLEY 

until 1886 that John Gilley made 
his first sale of land for summering 
purposes. In the next year he made 
another sale, and in 1894 a third. 
The prices he obtained, though 
moderate compared with the prices 
charged at Bar Harbor or North- 
East Harbor, were forty or fifty 
times any price which had ever been 
put on his farm by the acre. Being 
thus provided with what was for 
him a considerable amount of ready 
money, he did what all his like do 
when they come into possession of 
ready money — he first gave himself 
and his family the pleasure of en- 
larging and improving his house and 
other buildings, and then lent the 
balance on small mortgages on village 
real estate. Suddenly he became a 
63 



JOHN GILLEY 

prosperous man, at ease, and a leader 
in his world. Up to this time he 
had merely earned a comfortable 
livelihood by means of diversified in- 
dustry ; since his second marriage now 
he had a secured capital in addition 
to his farm and its buildings. Now, 
at last, he was highly content, but 
nevertheless ready as ever for new 
undertakings. His mind was active, 
and his eye and hand were steady. 

When three cottages had stood 
for several years on the eastern fore- 
side of North-East Harbor, — the 
nearest point of the shore of Mount 
Desert to Sutton's Island, — John 
Gilley, at the age of seventy-one, 
undertook to deliver at these houses 
milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables every 
day, and chickens and fowls when 
64 



JOHN GILLEY 

they were wanted. This undertaking 
involved his rowing in all weathers 
nearly two miles from his cove to the 
landings of these houses, and back 
again, across bay waters which are 
protected indeed from the heavy 
ocean swells, but are still able to 
produce what the natives call " a big 
chop/' Every morning he arrived 
with the utmost punctuality, in rain 
or shine, calm or blow, and alone, 
unless it blew heavily from the north- 
west (a head wind from Sutton's), or 
his little grandson — his mate, as he 
called the boy — wanted to accompany 
him on a fine, still morning. Soon 
he extended his trips to the western 
side of North-East Harbor, where 
he found a much larger market for 
his goods than he had found thirty- 
5 65 



JOHN GILLEY 

five years before, when he first de- 
livered milk at Squire Kimbairs 
tavern. This business involved what 
was new work for John Gilley, 
namely, the raising of fresh vege- 
tables in much larger variety and 
quantity than he was accustomed to. 
He entered on this new work with 
interest and intelligence, but was of 
course sometimes defeated in his 
plans by wet weather in spring, a 
drought in summer, or by the worms 
and insects which unexpectedly at- 
tacked his crops. On the whole he 
was decidedly successful in this 
enterprise undertaken at seventy-one. 
Those who bought of him liked to 
deal with him, and he found in the 
business fresh interest and pleasure. 
Not many men take up a new out- 
66 



'LofC. 



JOHN GILLEY 

of-door business at seventy, and 
carry it on successfully by their own 
brains and muscles. It was one of 
the sources of his satisfaction that 
he thus supplied the two daughters 
who still lived at his house with a 
profitable outlet for their energies. 
One of these — the school-teacher — 
was an excellent laundress, and the 
other was devoted to the work of the 
house and the farm, and was helpful 
in her father's nev/ business. John 
Gilley transported the washes from 
North-East Harbor and back again 
in his rowboat, and under the new 
conditions of the place washing and 
ironing proved to be more profitable 
than school-keeping. 

In the fall of 1896 the family 
which had occupied that summer one 
67 



JOHN GILLEY 

of the houses John Gilley was in the 
habit of supplying with milk, eggs, 
and vegetables, and which had a 
young child dependent on the milk, 
lingered after the other summer 
households had departed. He con- 
sented to continue his daily trips a 
few days into October that the child's 
milk might not be changed, although 
it was perfectly clear that his labor 
could not be adequately recompensed. 
On the last morning but one that he 
was to come across from the island to 
the harbor a strong northeast wind 
was blowing, and some sea was run- 
ning through the deep passage be- 
tween Sutton's Island and Bear 
Island, which he had to cross on his 
way to and fro. He took with him 
in his boat the young man who had 
68 



JOHN GILLEY 

been working for him on the farm 
the few weeks past. They deHvered 
the milk, crossed to the western side 
of North-East Harbor, did some er- 
rands, there, and started cheerfully 
for home, as John Gilley had done 
from that shore hundreds of times 
before. The boy rowed from a seat 
near the bow, and the old man sat on 
the thwart near the stern, facing the 
bow, and pushing his oars from him. 
They had no thought of danger ; but 
to ease the rowing they kept to wind- 
ward under Bear Island, and then 
pushed across the deep channel, 
south by west, for the western point 
of Sutton's Island. They were more 
than half-way across when, through 
some inattention or lack of skill on 
the part of the young man in the 
69 



JOHN GILLEY 

bow, a sea higher or swifter than the 
rest threw a good deal of water into 
the boat. John Gilley immediately 
began to bail, and told the rower to 
keep her head to the waves. The 
overweighted boat was less manage- 
able than before, and in a moment 
another roller turned her completely 
over. Both men clung to the boat 
and climbed on to her botton. She 
drifted away before the wind and sea 
toward South- West Harbor. The 
oversetting of the boat had been 
seen from both Bear Island and 
Sutton's Island ; but it was nearly 
three quarters of an hour before the 
rescuers could reach the floating boat, 
and then the young man, though 
unconscious, was still clinging to the 
boat's keel, but the old man, chilled 
70 



JOHN GILLEY 

by the cold water and stunned by the 
waves which beat about his head, 
had lost his hold and sunk into the 
sea. In half an hour John Gilley 
had passed from a hearty and success- 
ful old age in this world, full of its 
legitimate interests and satisfactions, 
into the voiceless mystery of death. 
No trace of his body was ever found. 
It disappeared into the waters on 
which he had played and worked as 
boy and man all his long and for- 
tunate life. He left his family well 
provided for, and full of gratitude 
and praise for his honorable career 
and his sterling character. 

This is the life of one of the for- 
gotten millions. It contains no 
material for distinction, fame, or long 
remembrance; but it does contain 
71 



JOHN GILLEY 

the material and present the scene 
for a normal human development 
through mingled joy and sorrow, 
labor and rest, adversity and success, 
and through the tender loves of child- 
hood, maturity, and age. We cannot 
but believe that it is just for countless 
quiet, simple lives like this that God 
made and upholds this earth. 



72 



1904 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




